Irenisa Tokyo Spring 2025 Collection

“We thought it would be fun if people would wear our clothes and experience the world in a different way than before.” That’s what Yuji Abe and Yu Kobayashi said after Irenisa’s spring show, which took place on a humid Thursday evening in a glass-walled studio above Harajuku station. This time the duo was inspired by Lucio Fontana, the founder of spatialism, who cut holes in his canvases and freed his works of art from their confinement within the frame. In her own way, Irenisa does the same thing with clothes, and Abe and Kobayashi have mastered their medium enough to make their own deep cuts in ways that feel slightly unusual. To wit: the trousers had double waistbands, the collar closures were deliberately wonky and there were pinholes in the chest of sporty nylon blousons, which were gathered at the back so that they billowed over the shoulder blades like curtains.

However, the brand hasn’t quite mastered leather yet and the straps felt too stiff and new next to the limpness of the rest of the fabrics (which were equally nice). These included summer wools woven with textured stripes of washi yarn, silk wool satins that danced under the light, and T-shirts enlivened with kago-zome, a basket dyeing technique that creates an effect similar to dappled shadows and which looked particularly interesting on a asymmetrical T-shirt dress.

This was also the first time the brand showed women’s clothing. Unsurprisingly, women are already customers of Irenisa’s menswear, so the development felt natural, but also had some of the highest features of this collection, including a striped wrap skirt with three ties at the side of the thigh; the cotton was just thin enough that you could see the legs moving against it – plus a sleeveless black dress with pockets that pulled the fabric tight over the crotch. How subtly weird – and also, how sexy! It’s these unexpected, slightly freaky moments where Irenisa shines, and it would be interesting to see how the duo expands on this even further. If someone wants to emulate your freak, let that freak flag fly.